Tuesday 26 April 2011

The equality of Ministry

I was pondering a few weeks ago an old, wearied ministry subject, that sadly rears its head every few years - the subject of women in ministry. It's been prominent in my mind because of a paper and subsequent discussion at Baptist Union Council - of which I am a member, where council affirmed the full inclusivity of all women for all ministry without exception, and lamented the times when churches of the union had sought to exclude. Now, the position of total inclusivity is one that I full support. Don't get me wrong - I've got the books on my shelf from all stand points, I've listened to many a talk, at one time taken a view that leadership was male, and followed a good few figures as their disciple on this subject. But, when all is said and done, I've come out of the end of the machine and I keep it simple! God gives his Spiritual Gifts equally to both genders and in no way seperates the gift of leadership away from the female gender. For me, at all levels of leadership, women are welcome in ministry. In fact, I have observed an awful lot of male only leadership teams and seen where they have completely mucked up an issue, sometimes a pastoral one, simply because the male only blind fold has kept them from seeing some of the vital other aspects of it, to make a good and right decision.
Now I accept that some try to be true to scripture and are fundamentalist and make their decision simply on the Word - which is only a tiny aspect of this subject and leaves out the huge exegesis and exposition to properly interpret God's will. So I understand this, but I simply don't agree with it. But it's the rest of the bunch - and I actually think this covers 90% of the gathered, who seem to say "no" because of their own prejudice or fear. For some, it even seems to be about ehri child hood, and something going wrong that has created a male only perspective. In the worst cases, this can come near to being bigotry and darned right sinful behaviour.
Above all else, these are yesterday's issues and the church would be in real, serious difficulty without the wonderful, quality and superb input, at all levels, of all women of God, in ministry!